now that i've got the digital camera working, i thought i'd post some pics of my car, before and after.

I'd also like to thank Steve (steve86ta), supplier of many of the new parts, (who even went to the yard to get me a rear bumper)

 

before:

 

another after or two

 

...

 

i like the interior!! however the like the look of the 91 - 92 birds..

but it still looks great!!

 

yeah, i got those seats done by a shop near gainesville FL in factory color matched synthetic for $450 total. and now that i've found moulded carpets for under $150, that'll get done when it gets warmer

 

and the last pic

 

I was thinking about doing that too, but I love the 92 front end too much! Looks good man!

 

looks damn good! great changes

 

i couldn't match the slightly faded red, so i thought it'd be easier to go with the gold until i could get it painted and all the dings fixed up. (all the gold was done with spraycans, as was the rear bumper - the front came close enough red, the rear was black)

 

That looks great man .. im not a fan of the 91-92 style at all so i think thats a great improvement

 

IMO the gold only looks good on the GFX on black cars. However, I too prefer the look of the 1985-90 look better than the 1991-92 body's. It looks meaner. Stronger. Larger. More like a muscle car should. 1991-1992 cars look anemic. I have seen ones that look sharp also. But that is my general opinion.

What also looks good is a 91-92 car with a 4th gen style wing and a Ram Air II hood. That makes the car look more like it should.

When you repaint the car are you going to leave the GFX gold or paint them grey like most of them. Or will you paint the whole thing red?

 

well, i've had two black & gold ones, and i agree that's where gold belongs . however, silver doesn't work well with gold wheels, tan tops, and a tan interior. (red/gold still looks better than old red/new red). and i think the light gold i used actually works better because it's not the same color as either the wheels or the top.

i'll probably just go to a one-color look if i get it painted, and i'm leaning toward something along the lines of the flame red metallic used on the GTA's (which i also had, but faded), only a little redder rather than maroonish. i don't have the time nor garage to go through all the work to color change from red to black, which i think i'd really prefer.

however, i must admit that it looks better than i thought it would. and i have seen gold passably done on white cars w/ tan interiors & gold wheels too.

 

(this one should've been with that post "..." earlier)

 

I love '85-'90 style T/A Verts, I want one SOOOOO bad.

Could you get an '85-'90 T/A vert from the factory?

interior looks damn sweet too.

 

yes and no. there were conversions done at ASC, more or less with GM consent, but there's a big debate about whether it was a 'factory option' or a 'dealer option'. GM supposedly recognized the 300-some 89 GTA's converted. the bottom line is, the cars exist, they're real hard to find, and usually real expensive. the the 91-92's actually have some advantages, with the airbags, the frame reinforcements under the doors, and personally i think the spoiler on mine looks better than the 'normal' 85-90 convertible spoiler.

 

i like the 85-90 ground effects better than my 91-92 ones. but i still love my front end. I would have left the front alone and just added the 85-90 side and rear GFX the same.

 

why not just find an 85-90 t/a and chop the top?

oh well, to each his own.

 

Why would you hack up the integrity of a car, when you could 110% more easily just switch some ground effects and have a newer, better, version just looking like the '85-'90 style that was better in appearance.

 

I think you did a great job converting the ground effects & nose. Looks perfect. Are you going to change the rear spolier? Because the spoiler is different on the pre-91 convertibles. I have a 91 TA Convertible myself but I think the pre-91's are awsome are very rare.

 

if you're looking at it in that sense, then why would you convert a perfectly good (and not to mention pretty rare) car to look like another one? i know you could piece it back together, but why go thru all the trouble? is that really easier then cutting the top off an older model?

patrick: it looks darn good, there's no debating that. i was just looking at it from a cost/ease view. was it cheaper and easier than converting an older model (i'm not being a smart @$$, i really just want to know).

 

diddo

 

first, the whole project cost less than $450, including sandpaper and paint and decals. no one is chopping anything for that price. the painting took about 4-5 nights @ 2-3 hours, and the swap itself took only one whole saturday.

the number of convertible-specific parts you'd need to do that is a ton, and they're rare and expensive, and some would require significant modifications.

the only reason i let my 88 GTA go is that it was starting to get some frame rust, and found a conv with the same options etc. if i could've foung a 90 conv, i certainly would've bought it instead.

there were, as you can see, a number of things wrong with the 92 when i got it, including damage to the front bumper, both front GFX, and cracks in the passenger side door GFX. all those would've required taking them off the car to fix them right, so i didn't end up doing that much extra work after all.


as for the spoiler, i like the 91-92 conv spoiler better, it looks more like the regular trans am aero wing. all things considered, i don't know why they didn't just put the flat firebird spoiler on all the conv's.

 

actually, when i get around to replacing that fender, i'll tuck it back in so that there's less of a gap between the hood/lights/fenders after that accident that pulled it away

 

i agree completely! it looks great, but the crappy thing is you can't find them to replace them. i have a crack in the passenger spoiler piece, but can't find a replacement anywhere. if you ever find one, let me know. if you ever decide to get rid of yours (spoiler), LET ME KNOW.


and $450 for the whole project: WOW! not bad.

 

Interior looks great. I like those gfx and the 91/92's, so I think it looks good either way.

 

aww man why did you have to do that to a nice 91-92 bird it looks good now but when I read that you converted it from a 91-92 front end to that my heart sunk.

 

its not like its any less of a car. every single person that i interact with personally that i have asked dislikes the 91-92 ground effects (and even more that nasty front-end). just a matter of opinion i guess.

it never ever occured to me, back when i was shopping for a thirdgen t/a, that i could very easily buy a 91-92 and have all the benefits of a newer car (nicer interior, parts less warn, lower mileage). sometimes when i look at my splitting center console, and my ageing carpet, i wish i had done things differently.

patrickm00 , i think you made an excellent decision, and the car looks beauty now. gj!

 

Good job, I really dont like the 91-92 style either!

 

Aren't the headlight doors slightly different on the 91-92s??

 

I didn't realize that type of conversion can cost so little. That gives me another option for after graduation now I want a 85-90 TA Convertible sooooo bad but I'm quite aware of how rare they are to find in good shape. I wouldn't mind the work needed at all to just find a less rare 91-92 vert and do the body conversion. Patrick, you've given me some hope

As for your particular job done converting your car: Love it except for the color choice. Otherwise I LOVE the 85-90 gfx w/ vert look

 

yeah, i still think this looks better colorwise, i hated seeing this car go.

 

be careful though, it can be a lot of work, and i've had quite a bit of practice... this was my GTA with lots of rust when i bought it...

 

(... and this was the GTA after we painted it...)

yes, they are a bit different, but mostly cosmetically. i changed the bezels, which fit on the new ones, since the new lights are smaller. there's a gap now since i haven't had time to fab a proper filler panel. i think eventually i'll just find a set of 85--90 lights at a cheap price...

 

and don't worry, modem users, i think i'm done posting pictures to this thread unless someone asks for them...

 

the conversion is not overly difficult. just have a drill ready, not all the panels line up in the old holes. and have some Krylon clearcoat and/or RTV handy. it helps to paint over the holes you drill (from both sides) to prevent rust. I believe RTV will have a similar effect, though it's not quite as good. but for the ones where you can't paint because of overspray problems, it's something.


the front turn signal wires are about 18" shorter, so you need to extend those.




i'd completely remove it, then repair it from the inside surface with epoxy. make sure you rough it up so the epoxy has something to grip. a few pins/nails/wires holding it together inside wouldn't hurt, especially if you coat them with epoxy (basically you're approximating a 'composite fiber' matrix). that's how i fixed the cracked headlight bucket from the accident. drilled holes, pulled strong wire through tightly and clamped, then epoxy'd the wire in place along with the seam between the broken edges it was holding. it's worked beautifully.

for the record, i don't think the 91-92 trans am looked bad, just a)liked this look better (well, not really the gold, but that was the lesser of three evils) b)several damaged bumper/gfx parts had to go anyway, so this was the time to change, and c) this was a lot cheaper, and so are replacement parts.

(if i had had a 'perfectly good' 92, i wouldn't have spent the money or effort. but since there was lots of body work to be done, i may have saved money or spent very little to get a look i like better anyhow)

 

I don't know how to vote on that on. I usually don't approve of conversions from a newer model to an older. I have never seen an 85-90 style convertible.

I would loose the gold ground effects because I don't think that is good color combo with red.

I like it none the less.

 

I'm dying to know... did you drill an acess hole to get to the nut that holds the ground effects to the front of the rear quarter (you know, behind the front door on the inside of the panel). I need to get the GFX off the car to clean up the area.

I sure hope you sold your old stuff on ebay or something; some of those '91-92 parts are incredibly expensive, even damaged--which is really strange seeing as how a ton of people don't seem to like them. I'm unfortunately in a similar boat, but I like the '91-92 the best. I'll just end up repairing my stuff since it's not too bad (I'm more concerned about the co$$$$$$t of a good paint job)

 

nope, i went through the little vent. it's not actually as hard as you'd think, the second side went much easier once i figured it out. basically, it involves using about an 8" ratchet with the 10/11mm deep drive. you need to get your hand most of the way in, then use your other hand to feed the ratchet in to it. then it takes a lot of torque from just a few fingers (depends a lot on how far your hand gets down the hole, i guess). getting it back on was almost tougher, because i was afraid of overtorquing it and snapping it off, since it's hard to jugde how far on/how tight it is without a real good grip on the ratchet. it should be easier in the coupes than the convertibles, since i had a 1" drain hose in there that made it even harder to get my arm in that vent hole.

i haven't sold mine yet, but i'm fixing them up, and debating whether they're worth more to sell, or keep with the car, since the 92 conv are pretty rare if i ever sell it. but it would take a pretty decent price to pry them out of my closet at this point. but i think 3rdgenresource sells incomplete sets for like $850, and i've got impact bars, fog lights, turn signals, and headlight covers too.

 

that looks tight, I love those gfx. That's the one thing I always thought was missing in the 91-92's. I love the nose of the 91-92 but it just doesn't look right having that extra piece o car on the under side of the nose. Just my .02, but I love what you did.
~Alex